Wasn't Healthy
by Sano S. Sagara
Summary: A companion to my story "Isn't Healthy", featuring Mrs. Hudson as she watches John circle the drain. Set after Reichenbach Falls, but before season three. Slight morbidity warnings.


**A/N- So I got a couple lovely PMs from people asking for any more/an addition to my story "Isn't Healthy", and I just had to comply! Here's Mrs. Hudson's point of view of John's unhealthy behavior. **

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John wasn't acting healthy. Of that, Mrs. Hudson was completely sure. The poor dear hadn't tidied up the flat, he hadn't put away Sherlock's things… he had barely taken a stab at her abused refrigerator and only done so because the stench had been all consuming. Every time she visited her broken boy upstairs Mrs. Hudson had to pour out almost a dozen mugs of stagnant, filmy, partially evaporated tea.

She would look at the other table set, arranged neatly across from where John sat, and sigh. It certainly wasn't her place to tell John how to deal with Sherlock's death but surely there was something she could do to help ease the suffering the displaced doctor was feeling. She would look over to the mantle and see the skull sitting there, a tiny corner of the packet of Sherlock's cigarettes protruding from the eye socket, and bite back a tiny whimper of pain. She would stumble against Sherlock's second, heavier coat hanging by the door and the tears would swell in her eyes until she just couldn't stay another moment in flat B.

Down the stairs she would flee, day after day for three years. Down the stairs that she used to listen for Sherlock's footsteps to trudge up each night. Listen for her beloved boy to return from whatever stupid risk he was taking. For so long Mrs. Hudson would listen for that heavy and sure footfall on the squeaky step that would let her know that Sherlock had come home safe-and then it had been two sets of footsteps she listened for. John had come into the flat like an understated miracle who pulled the humanity straight from Sherlock's heart and into the light of day. So Mrs. Hudson had listened for his steps too, each night.

She couldn't say anything to John, not since Sherlock had died. Nothing more heavy than the weather, than the latest footballer gossip, nothing heavier than the bare minimum to assure her that John was still there. She couldn't talk to him about how he still spoke to Sherlock in the night. She couldn't talk to him about the abandoned cups of tea, or Sherlock's scarf by the door, or a skull filled with cigarettes. People mourned in their own way. People moved on or didn't in their own way.

Besides, she wasn't sure she COULD help John even if he wanted her to.

Mrs. Hudson came home one afternoon with her groceries in tow. Halfway through putting soup in the pantry she heard a sound that broke her heart and at the same time seized it in utter and complete fear.

A gunshot exploded above her, clear to her ears even through the floor.

Before, it would have simply startled her. Before it would have caused her to jostle her biscuits and tea. Before it would have caused her to chuckle and smile fondly up at her ceiling.

Now… For long seconds no muscle in her entire body would move. Mrs. Hudson felt the blood roar in her ears and the breath lodge in her throat like a shard of glass. Move, MOVE, she had to move. John could have accidentally shot himself in the foot. He could have been cleaning his gun and it had gone off. He might be hurt and need her help. He might have

_Blown his brains against the wall. Beside that horrible yellow smiley face. Oh god John killed himself. Killed himself. Shot himself. Put a bullet through his head. Oh GOD John KILLED HIMSELF. _

Screams reached Mrs. Hudson's mind and brought her back to the present. She was already halfway up the stairs and she didn't remember moving from her kitchen. A spark of wild relief filled her, screams meant John was alive. Screams meant he hadn't killed himself. Screams meant she could help him.

Mrs. Hudson threw open the door to 221B Baker Street and promptly sagged against the doorframe in shock. Sherlock Holmes knelt in front of a sobbing John Watson, hugging the shorter man to himself and alternating between stroking John's shoulders and back, and kissing the blogger's disarrayed hair.

"Hello Mrs. Hudson. I'm back," Sherlock said to her, as if nothing had happened. It was so ordinary, so extraordinarily every-day that she burst into tears.

"You damned fool! You damned, idiotic fool!" She gasped out the words against her sobs of happiness and continued, "Welcome back home, you fool!"


End file.
